Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Preliminary hearings into the New
Delhi gang rape case will be held privately, as yesterday’s
first court appearance of the five accused intensified public
anger at the assault.

“It has become completely impossible to proceed,”
Magistrate Namrita Aggarwal said shortly before clearing the
court and setting Jan. 10 as the next date of hearing. She said
lawyers not directly involved in the case, the media and members
of the public cannot be present at proceedings.

The decision yesterday came after the hearing was delayed
for two hours as a group of lawyers denounced other advocates
who volunteered to represent the defendants. About 25 police
were unable to restore calm as more than 100 lawyers and
journalists squeezed into a room with about 30 seats, with
arguments and scuffles breaking out amid concerns for the safety
of the accused.

Police said they have evidence linking the five to the
abduction and murder of the 23-year-old physiotherapy student, a
two-hour attack that sparked street rallies, government
inquiries and the establishment of fast-track rape courts. A
sixth person charged is appearing before a juvenile justice
board as he’s under 18.

Brutal Crime

The gang rape of the woman on Dec. 16 provoked a sustained
and charged debate about the safety of women in the world’s
biggest democracy. What has united the nation in collective
outrage is the brutality of the crime, allegations by a male
friend of the victim that it took police 45 minutes to respond
to calls, and comments from politicians and religious figures
that appear to blame women for inviting a growing number of
sexual assaults.

The attack on the woman and her friend, which led to her
death almost two weeks later, forced the government to address
demands for swifter justice, safer streets and heavier sentences
in rape cases. India’s top court on Jan. 4 began considering
demands for faster trials and the suspension of lawmakers
accused of sex crimes.

“Never before has there been an outpouring of emotion
like this,” said Satish Misra, an analyst at the Observer
Research Foundation in New Delhi who has been following the
South Asian nation’s politics for three decades. “All the
political parties are going to come under pressure to show how
they are responding.”

Murder Charge

The magistrate yesterday presented the defendants with
copies of the charge sheet, which includes rape, abduction and
murder. The proceedings took place in a court about 100 yards
opposite the upmarket mall where the women had watched a film
before she was attacked on her journey home.

The friend of the woman, who was repeatedly raped and
brutalized aboard the bus, has recounted the assault which ended
with the couple being thrown on to the roadside, ignored by
passersby and argued over by police.

In a Jan. 4 interview with the Zee News television channel,
the man, who along with the rape victim hasn’t been officially
identified, described how they were lured on to the bus
operating illegally on the night of Dec. 16 as they returned
home from a movie theater in a southern neighborhood of the
Indian capital.

The six men aboard the bus, “which had tinted windows and
curtains, had laid a trap for us,” he told the channel. “They
beat us up, hit us with an iron rod, snatched our clothes and
belongings and threw us off the bus on a deserted stretch.” The
woman, who was flown to Singapore for medical treatment, died in
the hospital Dec. 29.

Police Failure

“The bus occupants had everything planned,” the man said
in the interview. “Apart from the driver and his helper, the
others behaved like they were passengers. We even paid 20 rupees
(36 cents) as fare. Then they started teasing my friend and it
led to a brawl” that ended with an attack with an iron rod, he
said. “Before I fell unconscious, they took my friend away.”

In revelations that will add to pressure on the government
to overhaul policing in the city, the man who survived the
attack told Zee News how officers took 45 minutes to arrive at
the scene after the couple were dumped on the road, with the
drivers of several cars, rickshaws and motorbikes failing to
stop to help. Police have since rejected the claim they took
almost an hour to respond.

Once police did arrive, they failed to provide blankets and
delayed taking the couple to a hospital as officers decided
which station had jurisdiction in the case, he told the channel.

After the interview was broadcast, police in the capital
filed a criminal case against Zee News for revealing the
identity of the man who was attacked. The interview made it
possible to identify the murdered woman, the police said.

U.K. Paper

The Sunday People, a U.K. tabloid newspaper, named the
victim Jan. 6. The newspaper reported the victim’s father said
in an interview he wanted his daughter’s name made public so she
would inspire victims of sexual assault, a claim he later
denied.

A woman was raped every 22 minutes in India in 2011,
according to the National Crime Records Bureau. There were 572
cases of rape reported in New Delhi that year, a 23 percent
increase from 2008, the latest bureau data show. The rise may
reflect a greater confidence in reporting assaults.

“The number of rape cases happening in India is
unbelievable; some men feel they can get away with rape,” said
Ranjana Kumari, director of the New Delhi-based Centre for
Social Research. “At the moment the law does not act as a
deterrent.” Only one in four rape cases results in conviction,
she said.

Fast Track

Newspapers and television channels have reflected the
public fury, dedicating front pages and hours of programming to
discussions of the threats facing women in traditionally
patriarchal India, where sexual harassment is regularly brushed
off as the fault of the woman or dismissed as “eve teasing.”

Breaking with precedent, the rape case will be heard on a
day-to-day basis once the formal trial begins. Other fast-track
courts have begun sitting in New Delhi.

The five men who appeared in court yesterday are Ram Singh,
Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Singh and Pawan Gupta. Indian
courts can hand down the death penalty for murder, while rape
has a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has appointed a retired Delhi
High Court judge to investigate the crime and suggest ways to
fix lapses in policing. He also asked a panel headed by a former
chief justice to rewrite criminal codes to allow harsher
penalties to be imposed, including capital punishment in the
“rarest of rare” rape cases.